


Contentment

by aspiring_dragon



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Multi, Technically a character study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-13
Updated: 2017-01-13
Packaged: 2018-09-17 06:03:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9308588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aspiring_dragon/pseuds/aspiring_dragon
Summary: Spock ponders his life before and after Starfleet.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I rewatched some of my favorite episodes from the original series and was inspired to write something with Spock. He has always seemed like the type of person who might struggle with happiness to me so I wanted to write about that. Also I'm completely ignoring the movies here so we'll have a happy ending. Hope you guys enjoy it!

Spock does not take contentment for granted. Firstly the feeling of contentment is as illogical as any other “feeling” by Vulcan standards – even though contentment brought by succeeding in one’s goals is, in, it’s own way, logical. Secondly Spock is not used to feeling content. He remembers – not too well – a time in his early childhood when he could call himself content. When he was still too young to not be cuddled by his mother and still too young for the world waiting outside their home. When he spent his days playing with I-Chaya and when he had nothing to worry about and nothing to prove.

He grew up constantly having to prove himself. To prove that he was a true Vulcan. He excelled in all his studies and showed no emotion even in the face of mockery from his peers. He endured the looks of the adults, the disapproval from T’Pring during their engagement and, worst of all, the disappointment of his father when he applied for Starfleet. And so after the age of five Spock was not and did not allow himself to be content. Starfleet would change that.

Working with Christopher Pike was an enlightening experience for him. Spock was fascinated by humans, in the ways they worked, how such emotional and illogical beings could live and survive. His “friendship” with Pike, even though very professional, was a good study in humans and was also, even though Spock would never admit it, something he had desperately needed as a child. So when Pike was promoted he illogically allowed himself to feel slightly disappointed. But only for a moment after he concluded that, despite the personnel change and a different captain, little would change. He would still be the chief science officer and could continue his study of humans and the wonders of space.

Unfortunately he did not realize the error in his calculations until it was already too late. James Tiberius Kirk came into his life like an explosion of emotion, golden hair and easy smiles that made Spock’s carefully constructed barriers seem like small, weak fences. And as if that in itself wasn’t enough Kirk brought with him one grumpy Leonard Horatio McCoy, who came into his life more like a slap to the face. Together these two men stubbornly asserted themselves into his life and, illogically, Spock found that he himself had adjusted to this change completely.

He denied all of this at first of course. Their relationship was and would be strictly professional, as was logical. But he failed to see when the professionalism was slowly chipped away by near death experiences, late night chess, affectionate bickering and rants of the captain’s eating habits. The captain and good doctor managed to get through his shields right to his core like the explosion they came into his life with. And, in the end, when it really mattered, they came to an agreement. 

Now many years later Spock still remembers those times quite fondly. Even with his confusion and outright terror, Jim and Leonard were good to him. He looks at them sitting on their couch in their home in San Francisco talking and laughing and no doubt being very illogical. Both men showing signs of their age and the life they led, Leonard with his wrinkles and Jim with his thinning hair and softening stomach. Spock can feel their thoughts filter through the bond they share and allows himself a small smile. He sips his tea. He doesn’t think his younger self could ever have imagined that this is how his life would go. And he sincerely doubts that a younger version of him would be able to look at his bondmates and finally feel content.


End file.
